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pollonegro666 · 2 years

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2022/06/18 Después de tanto paseo, nos dió hambre y fuimos a comer a un restaurante chino. Pedimos de buffet para poder coger lo que nos apeteciera. Mi amiguita pidió pescado con arroz. Después tuvo un pequeño accidente con el postre. Nos dieron una galleta de la fortuna. Y nos hicimos fotos con los amiguitos de alli.

After so much walking, we got hungry and went to eat at a Chinese restaurant. We ordered from the buffet so we could get whatever we wanted. My little friend ordered fish with rice. Then she had a little accident with dessert. They gave us a fortune cookie. And we took pictures with friends from there.

Google Translation into Portuguese: Depois de tanto caminhar, ficamos com fome e fomos comer em um restaurante chinês. Nós pedimos do buffet para que pudéssemos obter o que queríamos. Meu amiguinho pediu peixe com arroz. Então ele teve um pequeno acidente com a sobremesa. Eles nos deram um biscoito da sorte. E tiramos fotos com amigos de lá.

Google translation into Italian: Dopo tanto camminare, ci siamo affamati e siamo andati a mangiare in un ristorante cinese. Abbiamo ordinato dal buffet in modo da poter ottenere quello che volevamo. Il mio piccolo amico ha ordinato pesce con riso. Poi ha avuto un piccolo incidente con il dessert. Ci hanno dato un biscotto della fortuna. E da lì abbiamo fatto delle foto con gli amici.

Google Translation into French: Après tant de marche, nous avons eu faim et sommes allés manger dans un restaurant chinois. Nous avons commandé au buffet pour avoir ce que nous voulions. Mon petit ami a commandé du poisson avec du riz. Puis il a eu un petit accident avec le dessert. Ils nous ont donné un fortune cookie. Et nous avons pris des photos avec des amis à partir de là.

Google Translation into Arabic: بعد الكثير من المشي ، جوعنا وذهبنا لتناول الطعام في مطعم صيني. لقد طلبنا من البوفيه للحصول على ما أردناه. طلب صديقي السمك مع الأرز. ثم تعرض لحادث بسيط مع الحلوى. لقد قدموا لنا كعكة الثروة. وأخذنا الصور مع الأصدقاء من هناك.

Google Translation into German: Nach so viel Laufen bekamen wir Hunger und gingen in ein chinesisches Restaurant essen. Wir bestellten am Buffet, um das zu bekommen, was wir wollten. Mein Freund bestellte Fisch mit Reis. Dann hatte er einen kleinen Unfall mit dem Nachtisch. Sie gaben uns einen Glückskeks. Und wir haben Fotos mit Freunden von dort gemacht.

Google Translation into Albanisch: Pas kaq shumë ecjeje u uritur dhe shkuam në një restorant kinez për darkë. Ne porositëm nga bufeja për të marrë atë që donim. Shoku im porositi peshk me oriz. Më pas ai pati një aksident të vogël me ëmbëlsirën. Na dhanë një biskotë pasurie. Dhe ne bëmë foto me miqtë nga atje.

Google Translation into Bulgarian: След толкова ходене огладняхме и отидохме да вечеряме в китайски ресторант. Поръчахме от бюфета, за да получим това, което искахме. Приятелят ми поръча риба с ориз. След това претърпя малък инцидент с десерта. Дадоха ни баница с късмети. И се снимахме с приятели от там.

Google Translation into Czech: Po tolika chůzi jsme dostali hlad a šli jsme na večeři do čínské restaurace. Objednali jsme si z bufetu, abychom dostali to, co jsme chtěli. Můj přítel si objednal rybu s rýží. Pak měl malou nehodu s dezertem. Dali nám sušenku štěstí. A odtamtud jsme se fotili s přáteli.

Google Translation into Slovak: Po toľkej chôdzi sme vyhladli a išli sme na večeru do čínskej reštaurácie. Objednali sme si z bufetu, aby sme dostali to, čo sme chceli. Môj priateľ si objednal rybu s ryžou. Potom mal malú nehodu s dezertom. Dali nám koláčik šťastia. A fotili sme odtiaľ s kamarátmi.

Google Translation into Greek: Μετά από τόσο περπάτημα πεινάσαμε και πήγαμε σε ένα κινέζικο εστιατόριο για δείπνο. Παραγγείλαμε από τον μπουφέ για να πάρουμε αυτό που θέλαμε. Ο φίλος μου παρήγγειλε ψάρι με ρύζι. Μετά είχε ένα μικρό ατύχημα με το γλυκό. Μας έδωσαν ένα μπισκότο περιουσίας. Και βγάλαμε φωτογραφίες με φίλους από εκεί.

Google Translation into Suomi: Niin pitkän kävelyn jälkeen meillä oli nälkä ja menimme kiinalaiseen ravintolaan päivälliselle. Tilasimme buffetista saadaksemme mitä halusimme. Ystäväni tilasi kalaa riisin kanssa. Sitten hänelle sattui pieni onnettomuus jälkiruoan kanssa. He antoivat meille onnenkeksin. Ja otimme sieltä kuvia ystävien kanssa.

Google Translation into Polish: Po tak długim spacerze zgłodnieliśmy i poszliśmy do chińskiej restauracji na obiad. Zamówiliśmy z bufetu, aby dostać to, czego chcieliśmy. Mój przyjaciel zamówił rybę z ryżem. Potem miał mały wypadek z deserem. Dali nam ciasteczko z wróżbą. A stamtąd robiliśmy zdjęcia z przyjaciółmi.

Google Translation into Romanian: După atâta plimbare ne-a fost foame și am mers la un restaurant chinezesc pentru cină. Am comandat de la bufet pentru a obține ceea ce ne-am dorit. Prietenul meu a comandat pește cu orez. Apoi a avut un mic accident cu desertul. Ne-au dat un prăjitură cu noroc. Și am făcut fotografii cu prietenii de acolo.

Google Translation into Turkish: Uzun bir yürüyüşten sonra acıktık ve akşam yemeği için bir Çin restoranına gittik. İstediğimizi almak için büfeden sipariş verdik. Arkadaşım pilavlı balık sipariş etti. Sonra tatlıyla küçük bir kaza geçirdi. Bize fal kurabiyesi verdiler. Ve oradan arkadaşlarla fotoğraf çektik.

Google Translation into Hebrew: אחרי כל כך הרבה הליכה נהיה רעבים והלכנו למסעדה סינית לארוחת ערב. הזמנו מהמזנון כדי לקבל את מה שרצינו. חבר שלי הזמין דגים עם אורז. ואז הייתה לו תאונה קטנה עם קינוח. הם נתנו לנו עוגיית מזל. וצילמנו משם עם חברים.

Google Translation into Hindi: इतना चलने के बाद हमें भूख लगी और रात के खाने के लिए एक चीनी रेस्तरां में गए। हमने बुफे से आदेश दिया कि हम जो चाहते हैं उसे प्राप्त करें। मेरे दोस्त ने चावल के साथ मछली मंगवाई। तभी मिठाई के साथ उनका छोटा सा एक्सीडेंट हो गया। उन्होंने हमें एक भाग्य कुकी दी। और हमने वहां से दोस्तों के साथ फोटो खिंचवाई।

Google Translation into Indonesian: Setelah begitu banyak berjalan, kami merasa lapar dan pergi ke restoran Cina untuk makan malam. Kami memesan dari prasmanan untuk mendapatkan apa yang kami inginkan. Teman saya memesan ikan dengan nasi. Kemudian dia mengalami kecelakaan kecil dengan makanan penutup. Mereka memberi kami kue keberuntungan. Dan kami berfoto bersama teman-teman dari sana.

Google Translation into Malay: Selepas begitu banyak berjalan kami berasa lapar dan pergi ke restoran Cina untuk makan malam. Kami memesan dari bufet untuk mendapatkan apa yang kami mahu. Kawan saya memesan ikan dengan nasi. Kemudian dia mengalami sedikit kemalangan dengan pencuci mulut. Mereka memberi kami kuih keberuntungan. Dan kami bergambar dengan kawan-kawan dari sana.

Google Translation into Russian: После такой прогулки мы проголодались и пошли ужинать в китайский ресторан. Мы заказали в буфете, чтобы получить то, что мы хотели. Мой друг заказал рыбу с рисом. Затем у него случилась небольшая авария с десертом. Нам дали печенье с предсказанием. И мы сделали фотографии с друзьями оттуда.

Google Translation into Japanese: たくさん歩いた後、私たちは空腹になり、夕食のために中華料理店に行きました。欲しいものを手に入れるためにビュッフェから注文しました。友達が魚とご飯を注文しました。それから彼はデザートで少し事故を起こしました。彼らは私たちにフォーチュンクッキーをくれました。そしてそこから友達と写真を撮りました。

Google Translation into Korean: 그렇게 많이 걷다보니 배가 고파져서 저녁을 먹으러 중국집에 갔다. 우리는 우리가 원하는 것을 얻기 위해 뷔페에서 주문했습니다. 내 친구는 쌀과 함께 생선을 주문했습니다. 그런 다음 그는 디저트와 함께 작은 사고를 쳤습니다. 그들은 우리에게 포춘 쿠키를 주었습니다. 그리고 그곳에서 친구들과 사진을 찍었습니다.

Google Translation into Chinese: 走了这么多路，我们饿了，就去一家中餐馆吃晚饭。我们从自助餐点得到我们想要的。我的朋友点了鱼饭。然后他吃甜点出了点小意外。他们给了我们一块幸运饼干。我们和那里的朋友合影留念。

Google Translation into Persian: بعد از اینهمه پیاده روی گرسنه شدیم و برای شام به یک رستوران چینی رفتیم. از بوفه سفارش دادیم تا به چیزی که می خواستیم برسیم. دوستم ماهی با برنج سفارش داد. بعد با دسر تصادف کوچکی کرد. یک کلوچه ثروت به ما دادند. و از آنجا با دوستان عکس گرفتیم.

Google Translation into Thai: หลังจากเดินมามากเราก็หิวและไปทานอาหารเย็นที่ร้านอาหารจีน เราสั่งจากบุฟเฟ่ต์เพื่อให้ได้สิ่งที่เราต้องการ เพื่อนของฉันสั่งปลากับข้าว จากนั้นเขาก็ประสบอุบัติเหตุเล็กน้อยกับของหวาน พวกเขาให้คุกกี้โชคลาภแก่เรา และเราถ่ายรูปกับเพื่อนๆ จากที่นั่น

Google Translation into Bengali: এত হাঁটার পর ক্ষুধা লেগে গেল একটা চাইনিজ রেস্টুরেন্টে ডিনারের জন্য। আমরা যা চাই তা পেতে বুফে থেকে অর্��ার দিলাম। আমার বন্ধু ভাতের সাথে মাছের অর্ডার দিল। তারপর ডেজার্ট নিয়ে তার একটু দুর্ঘটনা ঘটে। তারা আমাদের একটি ভাগ্য কুকি দিয়েছে. এবং আমরা সেখান থেকে বন্ধুদের সাথে ছবি তুললাম।

Google Translation into Ukrainian: Після стількох прогулянок ми зголодніли та пішли повечеряти в китайський ресторан. Замовляли зі шведського столу, щоб отримати те, що хотіли. Мій друг замовив рибу з рисом. Потім він трапився з десертом. Вони дали нам печиво з долею. І ми з друзями звідти фотографувалися.

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nicetrynicetry · 2 months

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Valentine’s Day and the computer is saved. The relief is not worth the anguish. Before going to the Apple Store, I demand the most punishing exercises in Pilates, hoping the panic will move from my mind to my obliques. Honestly it kind of works. Today the main instructor is away and a woman from Nova Scotia with a thousand ear cartilage piercings is standing in. She says her husband and her are beyond celebrating Valentine’s Day. She says she associates the date more with her dentist’s birthday. “I’ve had a lot of dental surgery”, she explains, adjusting my left foot on the reformer. She always asks if I’m okay with being touched, and I always say yes, but mean yes god PLEASE touch me, any part of me, I never get touched. I have been in a severe touch deficit since 2018. By the end of the class my core is trembling and it’s pleasant. I gift myself a bus ride into town instead of walking. I eat a disappointing soup in Pret A Manger and watch a crack addict steal as many falafel bowls as his threadbare ikea bag will accommodate. I watch teen girls drag their mothers into vintage clothing stores, and suited men in Uniqlo “fiancé vests” hurry back to the office, and a street performer balance on a tightrope tied to two pillars of a church, and tourists and guides

The Genius Bar is packed with hot people and their broken MacBooks. “I’m a Genius Bar 3”, I text C. He has been gloomy since being dumped, tells me that a group near him in the pub last night were discussing a woman who slashed her wrists with a broken bottle at the Henley regatta. A Genius approaches me and runs diagnostics on my music laptop. “It shows signs of life”, she says, “which is good news. What is your occupation?” When I tell her she says she loves Otto Dix. While she runs more tests she says she loves Caravaggio. She does not give a satisfying explanation for what happened to the computer, only that it was a freak occurrence. Tells me the computer is “crying out” for a software update. I make her stay with me while it updates, blocking my left ear while the hottest guy I’ve ever seen chews gum while waiting for his appointment. He is replaced by an Instagram model who tells her Genius she has a lot of readymade content that hasn’t been backed up. I pray, silently, that some of this content is for OnlyFans. My own computer updates, and I update my Universal Audio interface software, and I update my Chrome, and my Adobe Cloud, all at the Genius Bar table

On the bus home I watch a comedy clip with a guy saying “it’s better to be alone than in a bad relationship. I know this because nobody who’s alone is fantasising about being in a bad relationship”. A slept badly and we speak at 5pm, and during the call a man delivers the flowers that A ordered. They are so beautiful I almost become angry. They’re the kinds of flowers you buy when you’ve done something really really terrible and wish to make amends. I hate that I think in these terms, but I do. I read an advice column in the Guardian a few days ago, a man writing in to say he loves his wife but wants very badly to have an affair with his wife’s friend. They already kissed, he explains. He wonders whether he could find true happiness with this woman. The therapist answering the letter, who incidentally lives four doors down from me but who I never see, tells this man to think past the fantasy. “Imagine your daughter growing up and never trusting her partner because of what you did to her mother”, she writes. And it’s true - just because your father having an affair is a cliche, doesn’t mean it isn’t corrosive. Either you betray and exhaust yourself to “keep” a man, or stay away from all men because none can be “kept”. I digress. All this to say that I’m suspicious of gifts. Also on the call with A I mispronounce Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ guitarist John Frusciante’s last name, and A laughs at me and says it’s adorable and I cover my face with my hand to cry for exactly 40 seconds, mortified. This outsized sense of humiliation reminds me of when I was about 8, some cool boys approached me in the playground at school and asked me if I knew what a condom was. I said I did, and that it meant “boyfriend”. They made me the butt of every joke for what seemed like weeks after that, but it was probably just a few days. A leaves to go and work out with his childhood friends and I cry some more and smell my new flowers and back my computer the fuck up

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faerlykoi · 1 year

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We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe. By meaningless bulk, vastness without size, power without consequence. The stubborn iteration that is present without being felt. Nothing the spirit can marry. Merely phenomenon and its physics. An endless, endless of going on. No habitat where the brain can recognize itself. No pertinence for the heart. Helpless duplication. The horror of none of it being alive. No red squirrels, no flowers, not even weed. Nothing that knows what season it is. The stars uninflected by awareness. Miming without implication. We alone see the iris in front of the cabin reach its perfection and quickly perish. The lamb is born into happiness and is eaten for Easter. We are blessed with powerful love and it goes away. We can mourn. We live the strangeness of being momentary, and still we are exalted by being temporary. The grand Italy of meanwhile. It is the fact of being brief, being small and slight that is the source of our beauty. We are a singularity that makes music out of noise because we must hurry. We make a harvest of loneliness and desiring in the blank wasteland of the cosmos.

--Jack Gilbert, poem, The Manger of Incidentals

#poem #poetry #jack gilbert

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analoguedreamss · 2 years

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The Manger of Incidentals | Jack Gilbert

We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe.

By meaningless bulk, vastness without size,

power without consequence. The stubborn iteration

that is present without being felt.

Nothing the spirit can marry. Merely phenomenon

and its physics. An endless, endless of going on.

No habitat where the brain can recognize itself.

No pertinence for the heart. Helpless duplication.

The horror of none of it being alive.

No red squirrels, no flowers, not even weed.

Nothing that knows what season it is.

The stars uninflected by awareness.

Miming without implication. We alone see the iris

in front of the cabin reach its perfection

and quickly perish. The lamb is born into happiness

and is eaten for Easter. We are blessed

with powerful love and it goes away. We can mourn.

We live the strangeness of being momentary,

and still we are exalted by being temporary.

The grand Italy of meanwhile. It is the fact of being brief,

being small and slight that is the source of our beauty.

We are a singularity that makes music out of noise

because we must hurry. We make a harvest of loneliness

and desiring in the blank wasteland of the cosmos.

#james webb space telescope #webb telescope #space #jack gilbert

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

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Jackpot watch: How the klept operates in the UK

In his 2014 novel The Peripheral, William Gibson plunges us into a far-future London, radically depopulated, quietly authoritarian, and under the iron thumb of “the Klept” — a fusion of the British chumocracy with post-Soviet Eurasian kleptoracy.

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/10/28/the-peripheral-william-gibson-vs-william-gibson/

The origins of this society — its depopulation, its neo-aristocracy, its captivity to inscrutable AIs called “the Aunties” are lost to history. They all took place during a time called “The Jackpot,” an interregnum where huge swathes of records simply vanished amid social breakdown, climate emergencies and cyberwar.

Gibson will be the first to tell you that he’s not attempting prophecy with his work, but it can’t be denied that he has an eerie ability to reflect back our latent, inchoate fears about the future in fiction, something he calls “predicting the present.”

When I emigrated from the UK to the US in 2016, I explained my reasons in a post called “Why I’m Leaving London.” The basic reason? The increasing obviousness of a city that existed primarily to launder vast, corrupt fortunes, and only incidentally be a place where Londoners could live and thrive.

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/06/29/why-im-leaving-london/

Since then, the UK — and especially the City of London, home of the nation’s finances — has doubled down on its role as enabler and concierges to the world’s filthiest money, and the psychopaths who come with it. The UK and its overseas territories consistently top the Tax Justice Network’s annual “Financial Secrecy Index.”

https://fsi.taxjustice.net/en/

Not all corrupt money comes from the former Soviet republics of Eurasia, but these countries — and Russia — embody a special kind of corruption: kleptocracy (“a political economy dominated by a small number of people/entities with close links to the state”).

This form of corruption is closely related to the chumocracy that dominates British politics, and especially the ruling Conservative party. Thus it should come as no surprise that the UK, with its Thatcher- and Blair-era emphasis on finance, and its political compatibility with kleptocracy, is a linchpin in global kleptocratic money-laundering and corruption.

“The UK’s kleptocracy problem,” is Chatham House’s deeply reported white paper on the connections between Eurasian kleptocrats and the UK political system, its finance sector, its charities, its libel laws, its property market, and its luxury goods sector.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/12/uks-kleptocracy-problem/01-introduction

The paper shows how the UK is a one-stop shop for corrupt, wealthy public officials from Eurasian kleptocracies. The UK’s finance sector will launder your money. Its Home Office will sell you citizenship via a “golden visa.” Its estate agents will convert the money to multimillion-pound mansions and “superflats.” Its charities will launder your reputation and recast you as a philanthropist. Its billion-pound mega-law firms and “reputation mangers” will destroy your critics and terrorize their publishers, cleansing you of sin with expert use of Britain’s notoriously bully-friendly libel laws. And while it’s all going on, the country’s luxury department stores will offer you white-glove service as you spend millions on gem-crusted, bespoke trinkets.

The UK’s role as concierge to the klept spills over beyond either the UK or Eurasia’s borders. Not only do oligarchs buy influence with British governments and regulators, they also use their London-washed money to funnel bribes to politicians around the world. Think here of the Azerbaijani Laundromat, in which $2.9B was funneled through 4 UK shell companies and converted, in part, to bribes paid to EU politicians.

UK politicians (both Labour and Tory) have managed to divert interest from this influx of unsavory plutocrats and instead focus on hardworking, everyday people who come to the UK to do hard, everyday work. For forty years, British politics has been dominated by xenophobic terror of “economic migrants” (a major factor in Brexit), with complaints about foreigners competing for housing and resources. Meanwhile, the issue of ultrawealthy kleptocrats coming to Britain to buy its football teams, entire swathes of its major cities, its newspapers, and its politicians has largely gone unremarked-upon.

Neoliberal economists describe the UK as a post-industrial nation focused on “services” — not the “service sector” (plumbers, waiters, cab drivers), but high-ticket services like “wealth management,” “legal strategy,” “investment counsel,” “reputation management,” “property management” and so on.

These “service-providers” are more properly known as “enablers.” The reputation management industry — which draws on all these services — describes its role in helping clients create “coherent narratives” about their identity and wealth, helps them steer clear of “out of place” investments, and identifies foundations and think tanks that they can support to be known as “philanthropists.”

Enablers don’t just help craft a public-facing narrative for oligarchs, though: they’re just as skilled at creating an opaque bubble of secrecy around the parts of oligarchs’ lives that are less savory. Britons are firehosed with information about kleptocrats’ philanthropic activities and endorsements by members of the British elite, but we almost never hear about the klepts’ private wealth, investment and assets.

Britain’s borders are notoriously hostile to working people, but they are extremely porous when it comes to the klept. The “Tier 1 Investor visa” is a golden passport by another name — a way to spend a pittance for freedom of motion between the looted, authoritarian states of Eurasia and the UK. Don’t let the “investor” fool you: there’s no good evidence that the “investments” required under the scheme have a positive effect on the real economy.

The British political class will tell you that the UK has advanced anti-money laundering controls, with scrutiny of politically exposed persons and those holding passports from high-risk countries. These laws are deceptive though.

For example, a “high-risk” nation is one without good money laundering regulations — including countries like Jamaica, which are not particularly prominent the global corruption industry. Meanwhile, Eurasian countries with strong anti-laundering laws that are never enforced are considered low risk, because risk is calculated based on the existence of a law, not its enforcement.

Meanwhile, the rules that require estate agents, bankers, and luxury goods dealers to report transactions from “Politically Exposed Persons” (PEPs) are riddled with loopholes and primarily enforced through nonexistent self-regulation. For example, a politician’s immediately family cease to be PEPs the day the politician leaves office — so a corrupt dictator’s kids can buy a £60m Knightsbridge property the day their dad steps down, with no reporting requirement.

Even when solicitors, estate agents, and other covered professionals are caught ignoring the reporting rules, they face tiny fines and no lasting penalties. Many offer the defense that they didn’t know they were working for PEPs — thus there’s an incentive to simply not ask any questions when someone shows up looking to spend 8 or 9 figures through your firm.

Perversely, the finance sector goes overboard in the other direction, with an approach that is “risk-averse” and “also risk-insensitive.” UK banks floor the financial regulator with “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SARs), filing these whenever a transaction has even a glancing contact with Eurasia. The regulator — grossly understaffed — ignores nearly all of these SARs, and the transactions proceed, with the banks’ asses now covered by dint of having filed the SAR. Another failing of UK anti-corruption law is its emphasis on identifying and blocking the proceeds of “crime,” rather than “corruption.” When an oligarch loots, it’s only a crime if the state decides it is. The Kazakh oligarch Nurali Aliyev loaned himself $65m from the bank he chaired and used it to buy a Highgate mansion (“there is no evidence to suggest the loan was repaid”). Kazakh authorities did not class this as a theft, so UK anti-corruption law has little to say about it.

The flip side of this is that when oligarchs fall out of favor and go into self-exile in London, their adversaries back home can use the UK authorities to exact revenge at a distance, by selectively classifying their wealth as criminal assets and ratting them out to the British authorities.

(Of course, oligarch-on-oligarch warfare isn’t limited to pitting rivals against UK tax authorities; there’s also spectacular acts of violence, including assassination by nerve agent and radioactive poison).

A key enabler of the klept in the UK is the nation’s great law firms, whose waves of mergers have produced chambers that generate more than £1b in annual billings. These firms offer full service — papering over the purchases of giant mansions, and suing the newspapers, publishers and reporters who write about them. Britain’s libel laws — much-admired by Trump — are a great help here. I’ve been on the receiving end of these threats, personally, and was forced to delete a truthful account of a billionaire’s financial stake in a firm that is implicated in human rights abuses around the world. The report cites a British journalist who estimates that “upwards of 50% of critical material about oligarchs ends up on the cutting-room floor” as newspaper lawyers force redactions of materials known to be true.

The British charitable sector is a favorite source of reputation laundering for keptocrats, especially charities associated with the British royal family, but also great universities and prominent think-tanks. Charities and universities have come to depend on private money more and more over the past 20 years, as austerity has starved them of public money. That makes them especially vulnerable to co-option by kleptocrats. As interested as oligarchs are in being associated with the charitable sector, they’re even more interested in funding the UK Conservative Party itself. The Tories’ co-chairman Ben Elliot has formalized a “cash for access” arrangement where major donors are invited to private events and dinners with ministers and the PM. Elliot is a natural to court oligarchs for the Tories; his day job is running a “luxury concierge service” called Quintessentially, which provides “services” to the ultra wealthy. Elliot’s spox says that this work is “entirely separate” from his work as co-chair of the Tories.

The Made-in-Britain enablers of the klept will tell you that the fortunes they facilitate are not criminal fortunes, and the Home Office will tell you that its focus is on Eurasian criminal gangs. But as the Pandora Papers — and other vast finance leaks — show us, the criminal wealth of the former Soviet Union is minute when compared to the oligarchs’ fortunes.

The klept isn’t criminal, because the klept writes the laws.

This is how the Jackpot starts.

#pluralistic

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beguines · 2 years

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Jack Gilbert, from "The Manger of Incidentals", Refusing Heaven

#jack gilbert #refusing heaven #poetry #favorite

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thedalatribune · 2 years

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Christmas

What is Christmas? Is it anything important at all? There is certainly nothing important to begin with about December 25, the date, because you see December 25 came from a Pagan observance of the birthday of the unconquered sun. It certainly isn’t Biblical. During that time the Pagans held two weeks of feasts’, parades, special music, gift giving, lighted candles and green trees. Some ambitious church members living in that Pagan culture decided to Christianize the holiday and in 336 Emperor Constantine declared Christ’s birthday an official Roman holiday.

There were some protesters such as Chrysostom, who rebuked Christians for adopting this Pagan thing, but it stuck. You see, we really don’t know when Jesus was born. Some say January 6. Others say March 9. Some say April 2O or May 2O. Some even say September 29, but nobody really knows. December 25 is strictly a grab bag date. It really belonged to a Pagan celebration. It has nothing to do with Scripture.

So it isn’t the date. Well, what about the name? Maybe there is something significant about the name if not the date. Well, it’s a short form of Christ Mass, a Catholic Mass, which grew out of a specific feast day called Christis Masse, which was established in 1038. So it certainly has nothing to do with Scripture. No, Christmas is not a holy day. Christmas is not a divinely prescribed day. In fact, it was in 1224 that St. Francis of Assisi really started the baby manger thing when he started a new cult of the worship of Mary, surrounding her in the manger with the baby?. You say, “Well if it isn’t the date and it isn’t the name, maybe it’s Santa Claus.” No, I don’t think so. You see, it can’t be all about Santa Claus because he never existed. The idea of Santa Claus is the result. of a 4th Century bishop’s activity. This particular 4th Century bishop gave his possessions to poor people. Supposedly he brought back to life two children who had been cut into pieces. His name was Saint Nicholas . So it became a kind of tradition for people to look at Saint Nicholas as a giver of gifts and the one who was particularly important to children. Well, Saint Nicholas became very popular in Holland and he got imported to America by way of Holland. Dutch children expected the friendly saint to visit them on December 5 and the custom grew that on December 5 they placed their wooden shoes by the fireplace to be filled with goodies.

A man by the name of Clement Moore really perpetuated the idea of this Santa Claus and he really made it a thing in America, because you see it’s Clement Moore who wrote the poem, “The Night Before Christmas.”

It was published in 1823 in the Troy New York Sentinel, and it became kind of the format for Christmas. It doesn’t seem to bother anybody that in recent years Pope Paul defrocked Saint Nicholas. You say, “Well, if it isn’t Santa Claus and it isn’t the name and it isn’t the date, maybe it’s the cards. Christmas cards.” No. Christmas isn’t Christmas cards because you see, that started less than 100 years ago. It can’t be that. This year America’s 5O million families will spend $800 million on Christmas cards. We’ll spend $200 million to mail them.

You say, “Well, if it isn’t the cards, then maybe Christmas is the spirit of giving.” Well, I’m afraid it isn’t the spirit of giving anymore. It’s the spirit of indulgence. Have you been to Toys R US lately? $10,000,000,000.00 will be spent on 1,500,000,000 gifts. $10,000,000,000.00! Incidentally, it will all be wrapped in $150,000,000.00 worth of paper.

You say, “Well maybe it’s it’s the tree.” No. The tree didn’t arrive until the 16th Century. The first person to have a lighted tree was Martin Luther. You say, “Well, what about Christmas is Christian?” None of it. None of it is Christian. None of it is biblical. Not a bit of it is commanded by the Lord. None of it is Scriptural. None of it is apostolic and none of it was ever observed by the early church. In fact, the Puritans even in early America called Christmas Romish rags. They deliberately worked on the first December 25 in order to show disdain for the Pagan holiday, and in 1644 English Puritans passed a law making Christmas Day a working day. It became illegal to cook plum pudding and mince pie. You say, .John, that’s a little much.“ Sure it’s a little much. But what is Christmas? Strip off the date, the name, Santa Claus, the cards, the presents, the tree and the food, and what. have you got? Nothing. That’s precisely what Christmas is ‑ nothing. It is absolutely nothing. It isn’t historical. It isn’t biblical. It isn’t Christian. It isn’t anything.

Worse than that, it turns out to be sort of bedlam, doesn’t it? You know, it’s an interesting thing that the very word "bedlam” comes from the word “Bethlehem.” In 1247 the priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem was founded in London, and by 1330 had become had become a hospital and by 1401 was a hospital for the insane. The noise and confusion of that insane asylum was known throughout England, and it became a byword.

St. Mary of Bethlehem was shortened to Bethlehem, and then by contraction and corruption it became known as bedlam. Bethlehem and bedlam, historically and semantically are related. You say, “Well, John, what about the birth of Christ? That’s something.” Sure that’s something. But that’s not something to be celebrated once. That’s something to be celebrated every day. Well you say, “If Christmas is nothing, then are we wrong to recognize it?” Not necessarily, if we recognize that it is nothing.

Enjoy the time with family and friends and sharing. If we enjoy our love and being together it’s good. But mostly I think Christmas is important because it gives Christians the opportunity to catch the world at least aware of Jesus, and give them the truth. That’s really what we want to do today. Christmas isn’t anything to me. It isn’t anything at all. It isn’t anything to you if you know Jesus Christ any different than any other day, because every day is a celebration for us who know and love Him. In fact, Christmas is a depressing time for most people. Did you know that? I read an article and this is what it says. It was written by J. M. Stubblebein who is the director of the California Department of Mental Hygiene. This is a quote:

“The Christmas season is marked by greater emotional stress and more acts of violence than any other time of the year.”

Christmas is an excuse to get drunk, have a party, get something, and give a little, leave work, get out of school, spend money, overeat, and I’ll buy it, Christmas is an excuse for us the exalt Jesus Christ in the face of a world that is at least tuned in to His name. I’m ready to take advantage of it.

John MacArthur

#John MacArthur #Christmas #Christmas Tree #Star #Ornament #Light #Theology #Marikina City #Philippines

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glmfic · 4 years

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GH Christmas 2019 | one-shot collection

~ pairing: Masako x John ~ word count: 2,150k ~ genre: holiday!fic

~ summary: ❝ John & Masako hold a Christmas movie marathon at church and incidentally teach the children about mistletoe...of course they have to know if it works just like the movies <3 ❞

~ warnings: candy cane sweet fluff!...also, maybe some typos I didn’t catch ;) ~ note: the first in a series of 4 one-shots dedicated to my dear readers (happy holidays!)-- enjoy! <3

Silver Screen

Something brushed up against Masako's side, startling her. Masako glanced to her left. There, kneading the carpet and bumping it's head against her again, was the church's resident cat.

“Mittens,” a small voice cooed to Masako's right. A young child leaned over her lap, reaching for the cat.

Masako picked up the cat held it out to the child, “Here Mittens, see Yuri a minute.”

The little girl gently accepted the cat, peppering it's head with kisses. A chorus of “aww” and “so cute” rang out. Mittens was very popular with the children of the Holy Trinity Church.

“She likes you,” John remarked, looking from the group of children clustered around the cat, to Masako, and then down at the projector he was working on.

Masako stood, picking at her kimono. The rich pine color marred by orange fuzz.

“I like her too. If only she didn't leave behind so much hair.”

John looked up, a bright smile pulling at his lips.

“I meant Yuri. She normally has difficulty adjusting to strangers.”

Masako clasped her hands together, with a small shrug.

“I can't really be considered a stranger now. She's seen me every Friday for the past four weeks.”

Movie night. It had started as a one time thing. John had found an old projector in the church attic and invited Masako to join himself and the children in their little screening of Miracle on 34th Street. But after such a successful evening, Miracle on 34th Street turned into The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas turned into It's A Wonderful Life, then finally-- just a few days before the holiday, they were to finish things off with A Christmas Carol.

John nodded,

“That's true.”

Masako wandered nearer to John, peering around him.

“Are you about done?”

John's blue eyes met Masako's dark one's with amusement,

“Almost. Why? Are you that excited for tonight's movie?”

“The kids are. Mittens will only be entertaining so long.”

“That's exactly what Sister Angela would say. You know them so well now. Ah, there--”

John powered on the projector and there was a collective squeal of excitement. The cat jumped free of Yuri's arms as half the children scrambled to their seats on a pile of pillows in front of the projector screen and a few ran for the light switches,

“I've got the lights, I got it--”

With a click the large playroom was suddenly awash in the warm glow of flickering candles and twinkling Christmas lights.

The hum of the projector and the tinny tone of the opening score filled the air and the children all settled down, eyes fixed on the screen. Except when someone was touching someone. Or the pillow was too lumpy. Or they wanted to hold Mittens. Sitting three kids apart at the back of the group, John and Masako worked in tandem. With practiced ease they separated bickering children, passed around snacks and then wet wipes for sticky hands and faces, quietly answered questions, held hands for comfort at any sad or scary parts. Yuri, who was particularly afraid of ghosts, sat herself on Masako's lap and refused to move through the entirety of A Christmas Carol.

Occasionally, Masako stole a glance over at John. One little girl had her head resting against his knee, and sleeping on his other-- Mittens. When John laughed the sound was bright, mixing with the giggles of the children around them. Masako smiled to herself, thinking how much she had enjoyed the last few weeks. As if he could feel her stare, John turned toward Masako. It was hard to tell her expression in the dim light and he gave her a slight questioning look, but she just shook her head and directed his attention back to the movie. But afterward, more than once, she caught him staring at her.

One hour and two bathroom breaks later, the credits rolled to a burst of applause. Little ones stood and stretched. Some, with antsy legs, began an impromptu game of chase. The ruckus in the room grew, until John spoke, asking his tiny audience what they thought of the movie. The children congregated around him again, eager to share their thoughts. It was more exciting than the other movies. Scrooge was a strange person. Yuri whispered to Masako that the ghost weren't that bad.

When someone started crying because they stubbed their toe, and another little boy nearly tripped on Mittens, Masako suggested the lights be turned on. The children raced to complete the task, nearly falling over their own feet. The switches were flipped and...pop! The twinkling Christmas lights went out.

In the dark of only candlelight someone shouted “ghosts!” and Masako felt her kimono clutched at by Yuri.

“Never mind, the ghosts were bad-- they were!”

Masako bent down to pat Yuri's head and reassure her as John ordered everyone to calm down and sit. After a head count, and a few repeated explanations that the lights going out were not ghosts, he excused himself to go see what the problem was, and get some flash lights if necessary. John paused at the door, glancing over at the medium, crouched down with Yuri clinging to her.

“Will you be alright with them?”

Masako summoned a confident look,

“Of course, go figure it out.”

John nodded, and stepped out the door. She couldn't tell because of the low light, but Masako swore he flashed her a smile as he went.

With John gone and the room so dark, the children huddled around the medium. Yuri made small whimpers. Masako pursed her lips, determined to live up to her confidence. Remembering hearing John do it once or twice, she softly began to hum. It wasn't any tune in particular, but Yuri's whimpers slowed as she listened.

“What's song is that?” a little boy at Masako's elbow asked.

“Yes, what is it? Can we hum it too?” a little girl begged, tugging on Masako's sleeve.

Yuri pulled her head away from Masako's shoulder and peered up at her, “Will it keep the ghosts away?”

“But didn't you hear Father John? There aren't any ghosts.”

“There are in that movie.”

“Yeah, that's right.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Please, what is the song?”

Masako looked down at Yuri thoughtfully, “What is your favorite Christmas song? Let's hum that.”

Yuri's small voice answered, “Away in a Manger.”

“Oh, I don't know that one. Can you show me?”

There were murmurs of agreement, and then somehow altogether, the children began to hum.

The humming quickly became singing and Masako found herself surrounded by a dozen tiny voices, no longer thinking of ghosts. Even Yuri stood a step back from Masako, doing her best to sing her favorite song well. Masako smiled a true smile, touched by such a scene.

On the final verse there was movement across the room and John's figure filled the doorway. Perfectly quiet, as to blend with the children, he joined in their singing. Masako turned her smile toward him and she saw the smile in his eyes shining back.

When the last notes faded, Masako was quick to praise, “That's my favorite song now too.”

Then the children noticed John and there was an out cry for answers: why was he gone for so long? Was he fighting ghosts?

Masako couldn't help but lock eyes with John at this question, a significant look passing between them, before he assured them yet again that this was not the work of Christmas ghosts.

“Let there be light,” John declared, flipping the light switch nearest him. One of the main overhead lights blazed bright.

The children cheered and quickly they flipped the other switches.

“It was just a blown fuse,” he explained to Masako as she was finally released by Yuri. The little girl bounded off, all her energy returning.

Masako then turned her attention to cleaning (snacks and pillows scattered), her feet dancing around kids and the cat, as John packed up the projector.

“That was pretty amazing.”

Masako glanced up from sweeping popcorn off the floor, “Hm?”

“You. With the kids. You really did great calming them down. The singing was nice.”

Feeling strangely shy under John's warm approval, Masako waved the compliment right back,

“What about you? You got the lights on. Priest. Ghost Hunter, and Handy Man.”

John grinned,

“All in a days work.”

Once finished, John announced that there was a bedtime treat waiting for the children, courtesy of kind Hara-san, and then it was time for teeth brushing and bed.

There was more cheering at the mention of a treat and the children scrambled to follow John and Masako out to the kitchen, but then, as a group, stopped short suddenly.

Masako blinked and stared back at them, worry nagging at her, but someone giggled almost immediately.

“What is it?” John asked, giving the children a wondering look.

A dozen innocent fingers pointed up, above John and Masako's heads. Masako's eyes widened.

Mistletoe?

“You know we've been watching those movies,” a little girl spoke up, her hands holding her face prettily, “and they always have that stuff.”

“The girls wanted it,” a boy cut in, making a face, “that kissy stuff. They wanted to see if it worked.”

One of the girls elbowed the boy, protesting that it wasn't just their idea.

“It's called mistletoe,” John corrected patiently, his attention on the children, but Masako's stolen look showed her that John's cheeks were just as pink as hers were, “Where did you find it?”

“Sister Angela got it out of the attic for us after the last movie night,” Yuri answered with glee. Gone was the shy girl.

“Well it doesn't matter, does it? It's not working,” the boy from earlier spoke, jabbing his finger at John and Masako, “they didn't kiss.”

“That's not true,” Yuri protested, “this is the first time they're both under it. The Christmas Magic just hasn't kicked in yet.”

Christmas Magic...?

Several sets of eyes stared up at John and Masako-- some hopeful, some skeptical.

Why did the kids have to be so precious?

Why did they have to wish for something so impossible?

Realizing they had allowed the kids to runaway with such ideas too long, Masako opened her mouth, about to remind them all of the delicious treats just waiting in the next room...when John slowly turned and faced her.

Following his lead, Masako turned also-- searching for some sign of his master plan.

How were they going to get out of this and not ruin Christmas Magic for a dozen children?

If they weren't careful they were both about to become a couple of Scrooges.

But what Masako found as she studied John was only that his hair was more tousled than usual, still slightly wet from the snow that fallen on him on his trip to the fuse box, and that the blue Christmas sweater he was wearing (the one the kids had made him) really did match well with his eyes...

Those blue eyes bore straight into hers. Reading his expression, it seemed to say, if you can't beat them...

Masako's heart beat thickly.

So, there was the master plan. John had decided to humor the children.

Softie.

Anticipating a chaste kiss to the forehead or cheek, Masako played along, eyes fluttering shut, firmly ignoring the odd sensation of what felt like dancing butterflies in her stomach.

The floor board creaked and Masako was aware of John stepping into her space...bringing with him the scent of some holiday soap, and whatever that light cologne he always wore was.

Masako's did stomach did a flip.

Maybe it wasn't butterflies dancing...but sugar plum fairies?

Absently, Masako felt something brush by her legs, and then in the next instant-- something was pressed to her lips. It was soft and it...tickled?

Masako's eyes flew open.

Orange fur.

Masako blinked in surprise. She was staring at the resident church cat, held up by John, who's face hovered just inches away. John peered around the cat, catching her eye with his sparkling ones.

She hadn't kissed John, she had kissed Mittens. Genuine laughter escaped Masako's lips, her eyes sparkling back at John.

Uproarious noise burst out as the children joined in, hooting and hollering. She had kissed the cat! Was that how it was supposed to work?

Suddenly several hands were waving at John, simultaneously begging for Mittens and shooing he and Masako away from the doorway, “My turn, my turn! I want to try!”

Christmas Magic, ghosts, and bedtime treats were forgotten in the face of kitty kisses.

“I just love mistletoe, let's put it up every year!” Yuri declared as Mittens was dumped into her waiting arms.

No longer wanted, and with the children so happily preoccupied...John and Masako took this chance to quietly slip off to the kitchen, sharing in a Christmas cookie or two.

#ghost hunt #I hope you guys have a regular dentist #because this may give you cavities #xD #I hope you enjoy my Christmas gift to you!#the first of four!#I <3 my readers #GH Christmas 2019 #Hey Tayter Chips-- it's finally here!

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lawrenceop · 4 years

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HOMILY for the feast of the Holy Family (EF)

Col 3:12-17; Luke 2:42-52

When I spent a couple of Christmases in the USA recently, I noticed that the carol “What Child Is This” was unusually popular, sung to the tune ‘Greensleeves’, written by one of our most recalcitrant royals, who was also called Harry! And yet, although Mary pondered the mysteries of the Incarnation in her heart, she would not, it seems to me, have asked such a question. She knew Who the Child is - after all, the angel Gabriel told her. So, what did she ponder in her heart? She pondered the depths of God’s love, and she must have wondered, given Simeon’s prophecy, where it would lead him. In other words, Our Lady asked not “What Child Is This?” but, more significantly, “What Love Is This?” What Love has the Father shown to us in the Christ Child? What Love has been bestowed on mankind? And how is this Love expressed in the Holy Family of Nazareth.

In his becoming Man, God has united himself to our humanity. But Christ did not just appear like an avatar though he could have. Rather, he chose to be born of a woman, as we all are, and to be subject to a mother and a father, as is proper and fitting for all human children. Christ thus chooses to be truly human not just physiologically but also relationally, socially, culturally. The Church has always pondered this in her Liturgy, which is why the Genealogy is sung on Christmas Eve, and we celebrate the feast of St Anne, and the feast of St Joachim, and medieval art liked to depict the Holy Kindred, that is to say, the Holy Extended Family of Jesus Christ (shown above).

For all these aspects are as much a part of what makes us human as the biological soul-and-body unity that we are. As St John’s Prologue says – and we venerate this mystery after every Mass: “Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis.” ‘And the Word become flesh and dwelt among us’ (Jn 1:14) and so we see in today’s Gospel what this dwelling among us entails. For it means that Christ was part of a family – not just the intimate nuclear family that we’re used to in the West but even the large, rambunctious, extended family of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. Incidentally, this adds to the tragedy of the refugees that have fled from Syria, Iraq, and other war-torn parts of the Middle East, for they are torn away from their larger family context and culture, even as Jesus, Mary and Joseph had to be torn away from their family when they fled as refugees to Egypt. So, as soon as it is safe, they return to Nazareth, and Jesus becomes part of the extended family; thus Christ can be missing for three days and his parents do not notice. This little detail hints at the size of the Holy Extended Family who had gone en masse to Jerusalem for the holy day.

So, what Love is this? It is a relational love, a love that is expansive and embraces a large family. For it is in the family that Love first comes to dwell. For this reason, the human family is sacred to God, and the Church and good governments must protect and encourage family life.

However, in today’s Gospel we see just how expansive God’s love is, and how wide is his holy family. For when Jesus says that he is in his Father’s house, in the temple, he reveals something vital about God. He is not thereby rejecting Joseph’s foster-fatherhood, nor showing teenage lip to his mother, as some have suggested. Rather, he is revealing something more fundamental and theological that affects each of us: he reveals what love the Father has bestowed on us, that is, on all humanity through the grace of Christ. Again, St John’s Prologue says: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn 1:12-13)

For, by the Incarnation of Christ, God wills to extend the holy family to include even us sinners. Christ’s incarnation makes possible for Mankind what had been beyond our human nature to grasp; Christ unites himself to our humanity so that we might be united to God’s divinity. Through grace, therefore, Man is united to Jesus, and so Man can share in what is his by nature, namely, Sonship. As St John says: “from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.” (Jn 1:16)

So, what Love is this that the Father has bestowed on humanity? It is pure Love, a merciful and unconditional and all-embracing love that surpasses our limited human imaginings. So profound is God’s love for sinful humanity that he has come in search of us; he has come, indeed, to dwell among us. What a marvel this is, which Our Lady must have pondered all her life. As St Robert Southwell put it: “Behold the father is his daughter’s son, / The bird that built the nest is hatch’d therein, / The old of years an hour hath not out-run, / Eternal life to live doth now begin”!

But although God has come in search of lost humanity by sending his Son, we find in the Gospel that two people, or probably all the Holy Kindred, are in search of the Christ Child. Something of a parable, not without irony, is being played out. For the sinless mother and her most chaste spouse play the part of humanity who, having fallen into sin and unchastity, have lost sight of God. And for three days they search for him with mounting anxiety. So too, when Man knows his sinful and fallen state, when he is gripped in anxiety, and confused, and lost – as our culture and civic society seems to be at this time – then Man must seek God, he must go to the Father’s house. Humanity without God is orphaned, and we must now return to the holy family of God into which we have been inserted by the Incarnation of Christ, and again by the grace of the Sacraments.

A final thought: The Blessed Mother has few words in the Gospels, so they are worth pondering. Here, it seems to me, her words have a kind of prophetic quality. She says: “Son, why have you done this to us?” And yes, this can be read in its most obvious way, even as a mild rebuke, for she had been worried for her lost son. However, she who is immaculately preserved from sin by Christ asks a question that should also be found on the lips of each of us who have been saved from sin by Christ. Maybe we don’t stop to ponder this often enough, but every Manger scene invites us to pause and raise this question: “Why have you done this to us?” Indeed, why have you done this for us? And the answer, as St John says, is this: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 Jn 3:1)

So, go in search of the God who first came in search of us. And then, take him into your homes and hearts. For if we do, them Christ will take us with him to his home, to heaven where he grants us to dwell eternally in his divine family, he draws us up into the relationship of love that unites the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Family on earth, united in love for Jesus Christ mirrors this divine and Holiest Family. So, on this feast day and in this Christmastide, when we go to look at the Holy Family in our Nativity scenes, ponder anew what Love this is: the infinite wondrous Love that is the one true God.

#Holy Kindred #Holy Family #jesus #incarnation #grace #divinisation #Christmastide #EF

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magikisms · 5 years

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Character Questionnaire

Tagged by: @strategiic Tagging: @animalcontrol @fulminabelli @magitress @manynarrators @youstolemycoat @spelltricks

1 ) WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE SMELL LIKE ? Either his cologne, whatever club you’ve found him in, some sort of sweet scent from Bunny’s perfume clinging onto him

2 ) HOW OFTEN DOES YOUR MUSE BATHE / SHOWER ? ANY HABITS ? He takes a lot of bathes, usually in the evening after a show if there’s nothing else to do. Though if he knows he’ll be busy later he’ll take a shower in the morning.

3 ) DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE ANY TATTOOS OR PIERCINGS ? No but he has thought of a few different tattoos he could get. Ranging from the name of someone important to him, to a rose on his lower back.

4 ) ANY BODY MOVEMENT QUIRKS ( EX : LEG SHAKING ) ? He fidgets with his hands a lot, that or keeps them crossed together. Also sometimes there will be some incidental stimming.

5 ) WHAT DO THEY SLEEP IN ? His underwear mostly though if he’s sleeping in a shared living place with friends/family he’ll wear a t-shirt with his own branding on it and sleeping pants with bunnies on them.

6 ) WHAT’S THEIR FAVORITE PIECE OF CLOTHING ? Dress shirts. He feels he should always be presentable and that’s how he feels most presentable. Besides they can shockingly comfortable if you get them in the right size in his opinion.

7 ) WHAT DO THEY DO WHEN THEY WAKE UP ? Brush his hair and teeth, go and eat something, come back and get dressed and do his hair. Depending on if he’s got a show that day or not he’ll either check in with the stage manger for when he’s suppose to come in or he’ll check in wit friends and see if they are up to anything and if they’re not he’ll probably just read for a bit.

8 ) HOW DO THEY SLEEP ? POSITION ? His sleep usually is pretty peaceful though he does have nightmares more often than most people both due to his PTSD and due to how much scary stuff a magic hero can deal with. He tends to sleep on his side hugging his pillow.

9 ) WHAT DO THEIR HANDS FEEL LIKE ? Soft and somewhat dry

10 ) IF YOU KISSED THEM, WHAT WOULD THEY USUALLY TASTE LIKE ? It really depends where you kiss him. Usually like Tic tacs and kinda bad hard candies left in the dressing room. Though if you caught him at a party or club he’ll taste like mix drinks

#--- in the art of magic keeping a secret is the greatest sleight || headcanons #tw alcohol mention #tw nightmare mention

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fuck-customers · 5 years

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Hotel Staff are not punching bags

I have got a long one, so bear with me. Tldr at the end. TW for cussing and abusive behavior. Okay so, I work as a front desk clerk in a mid range hotel, the type of inn you go to for a holiday, you might say. We are also part of an affiliation with an international hospitality group, which means employees of other locations around the country and world can stay at my hotel at a reduced rate. So Friday (11/2) this woman, let's name her Entitled Bitch, comes to check in. I do the usual checking in process, but her card doesn't authorize. EB asks me how much I'm trying to charge her for, and I explain that it authorizes for the full amount of the stay (4 nights) plus incidentals, which for my hotel is $25 per night. She immediately starts berating me saying that she already called and she was told we would have her incidentals waived. Which is patently untrue. NOBODY stays at my hotel without incidentals. Even when the owner of my hotel stays, he has a card on file. So I tell her this. She begins talking over me saying that she spoke with someone who said she could and that she's a supervisor at her hotel, so she knows how all this works. So she tells me she wants to speak to a manger. But here's the thing: after about 3pm on weekdays, management leaves. It's just me and the houseman on the clock for the entire hotel. Thankfully, the houseman that was there was also the manager on duty bc he had been with my hotel since it opened. Let's name him Clark. So Clark comes back from a shuttle run as EB is berating me to find a manager, so I ask Clark to handle her so I can keep checking in people who have lined up behind her. Clark decides to do a work around in the system to let her check in without authorizing incidentals, but that charges her card up front. This way we know we have payment, but she can't charge anything to the room, and we're looking at a loss if she fucks with anything in the room. Oh, and her card only had enough money on it for 2 nights rather than the original 4, so we know that she just didn't have the money in her account to pay. So she's checked in for 2 nights, and that's the end of it, right? Wrong Two days later (11/3) EB tries to charge a meal from the restaurant to her room. Of course she can't because we have no way of insuring she can actually pay for that food when she leaves. The restaurant worker tells her that she can't charge anything to her room, and she storms over to the front desk where I am working and demands to know why she can't charge things to her room. She accuses me of doing this to her on purpose and that I don't know who I'm fucking with. (Side note: she had a toddler with her, maybe 3 years old, who was there as she cussed me out.) I calmly tell her I'm not the one who put that on her room, but before I can even finish, she storms back to the restaurant to pay for her food, and then SITS ON THE COUCH ACROSS FROM THE DESK TO CONTINUE TO HARRASS ME. She told me multiple times she was going to have me fired, and that we needed to stop playing with her, as well as saying that I was slow and that I shouldn't be behind the desk, I should be cleaning rooms. As if cleaning rooms is somehow lesser to what I do?? Anyway, I kept my cool until she left, and then had to go to the back room to compose myself. I let Clark know what had happened, as he was working with me again. He then asked me why she was still here, as her reservation was only for two nights and it was well past checkout time. So I checked her reservation, only to find that one of the new desk clerks had extended her room without payment, despite there being a note in our log not to! So we try to get payment from her card on file for the two nights. No dice. Okay, time to lock her out of her room! So I deactivate her keys and wait for her to return, as she had left the building at this point. She comes back and is equally as bitchy on her way to the elevators. I call Clark over the radio that she's in the building so he can be at the front to deal with her. She comes screaming out of the elevator saying that we need to stop playing with her, we don't know who we're fucking with, etc. Basically as abusive and ugly as a person can be. Clark calmly explains to her that we need payment for her nights or she is not welcome on the premises. EB screeches that she'll be calling GHI (the hospitality group we're affiliated with) to get every last one of us fired, and starts doing just that. Clark tells her she has ten minutes to vacate the premises before we call the police to evict her. She curses at him again before begining to yell at the poor help desk operator she had connected to on the phone. So we call the cops. They arrive, and problem solved, right? NOPE. THIS BITCH INTERCEPTS THE OFFICER AS HES COMING IN AND SOMEHOW WINS HIM OVER TO HER SIDE. I honestly still can't believe this happened. Like, how the fuck?? Anyways, the officer, let's call him Officer Asshole, asks me and Clark to tell him what's going on. We do so. He then begins interrogating us about our policy and who's in charge. We basically tell him if she doesn't pay she doesn't stay, period. And by this point if she doesn't pay full price for her stay, she ain't staying. EB doesn't deserve a discount for the bullshit she's put us through. OA told us to call a manager to have them speak with EB. I told him no, I'm not going to call my manager out of their bed (it was late evening at this point) only to be yelled at. He looks point blank at me and says, and I fucking quote, " You don't tell me no." I'm FLABBERGASTED at this point. I have not a single clue how the fuck I've gotten to this surreal land, but I'm fucking here now, so GREAT. So, trying to get this over with, I not only call my manager, I call the owner of the hotel, let's call him Chad. EB is told by OA that is she yells that's it and hands her the phone. She tries to tell Chad the same bullshit she's peddling with the officer, but of course he isn't having it. So OA talks to Chad and Chad says that if she doesn't pay full price up front right now she's gone. The cop tells her this and then they go up to her room to start packing. You think it's over right? HA EB COMES BACK DOWN AND HAS MADE A NEW RESERVATION THROUGH GHI AND WANTS TO CHECK IN. Seriously, I can't make this shit up. OA tries to tell us that we have to check her in at the employee rate bc Chad only said she had to pay full price for her current reservation. I tell him no, we're going to charge her full price, just like Chad told him and he looks at me and says, "If you keep talking to me like that, you won't like what happens to you." And then OA demands that Chad be called again. At this point I have to go leave because I'm visibly shaking and am two seconds away from crying. I go and sit in the back room, and call my brother, who also works at my hotel as the night auditor. I am sobbing as I explain to him what's going on, and that I feel like I was just threatened by a police officer and now I have no idea what to do. My brother calms me down and tells me to just stay in the back room, and that Clark will take care of it. By the time I was calm enough to come back to the desk EB was finally leaving. Now we're looking at finding out where she works and making a complaint against her and we have a meeting on Wednesday (11/7) to teach our front desk staff how to kick people out basically. Tldr: Entitled bitch doesn't want to lay her bill on her hotel room, cops get called to evict her, cop takes her side and I have a meltdown before she is finally made to leave. Ps. After all the shit settled down, Chad called back and said that I wasn't in trouble and that I was doing a great job, so thank god for good owners.

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laura-elizabeth91 · 5 years

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Philip May: Theresa’s real righthand man

After reports that he’s at the centre of a No10 rift, Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor, asks how much power the PM’S husband wields

PHILIP MAY’S face was almost as inscrutable as his wife’s as he watched the Government suffer the biggest parliamentary defeat in history from the public gallery.

By avoiding eye contact throughout the exchange in the House of Commons, which saw Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement beaten by an unprecedented 230-vote majority, many assumed the Prime Minister might have broken down had she exchanged glances with the man she calls her “rock”.

In fact, as a Downing Street insider later revealed, quite the opposite was true. Inadvertently giving a telling insight into her 38-year marriage, the source said the real reason she couldn’t bear to look up at Philip was not because he would spark tears – that’s not the way they operate. It was more a case that he’d give her that “look” and she’d start a fit of nervous laughter.

While she shies away from discussing her private life, Mrs May has always been candid in discussing her relationship with the man she met at a Conservative dinner dance when they were at Oxford.

Speaking about the death of her parents, she told BBC Radio 4’s

Desert Island Discs that she had “huge support in my husband and that was very important for me”. She added: “He was a real rock for me – he has been all the time we’ve been married, but particularly then, of course, being faced with the loss of both parents within a relatively short space of time.”

Yet with reports that the mildmannered financier has caused a rift at Number 10 by thwarting the idea of winning Labour support for a customs union, just how much power does Philip May actually wield?

Although Downing Street has dismissed as “utter bunkum” claims that Mr May’s actions have sparked a row with Gavin Barwell, Mrs May’s chief of staff, the rumours do raise intriguing questions about who really wears the trousers in Downing Street.

Of course, this is nothing new. One Cabinet minister once pointed to Samantha Cameron, saying she was the driving force behind many policy decisions. Known for her socially liberal views, ministers joked that Samantha was such a strong influence on her husband that she “will have a more liberalising impact on Cameron than Nick Clegg”. According to Tim Montgomerie, the political columnist, Samantha also had a “huge influence” on the decision to soften the Government’s hard-line approach on the Syrian refugee crisis.

And one can’t imagine Cherie Blair ever holding back in Tony’s self-styled “kitchen cabinet” meetings. Denis Thatcher famously said the role of a political consort should be “always present, never there” and, according to insiders – that’s precisely how Philip, 61, plays it.

One former aide described his “ninja like” ability to be ever present without anyone taking “the blindest bit of notice”. “Philip wields power, but only when the PM wants him to. He’s always there but never in your face. I’ve never once seen him angry.

“He’s cool, he’s calm, he’s clear – he never waffles. Everything he comes out with is useful and worth listening to. I remember at conference once he was running around making everyone tea. As a consequence, he hears everything that’s going on. That way, when everyone has left the room, the PM can turn to him and say: ‘Well, what do you think?’”

Although he has worked as a relationship manager for the financial group Capital International for more than a decade, Philip has become an ever more visible presence at Number 10. When his wife took office, his employer issued a statement insisting: “He is not involved with, and doesn’t manage, money, and is not a portfolio manager. His job is to ensure the clients are happy with the service and that we understand their goals.”

Indeed, workers based near his Belgravia office had grown used to the sight of the Prime Minister’s husband popping into the local Pret a Manger for a sandwich. But not as much since the last general election – a political move, incidentally, that Philip was vehemently opposed to.

According to one impeccably placed source: “In the early days, when Theresa May had Nick and Fi [her former joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill], you hardly saw Philip. He wasn’t really needed. But since the snap election he’s been on the scene a lot more, especially since

Nick and Fi left. He goes on foreign trips now because she doesn’t want to do them without him. It’s ironic really because he was fiercely opposed to the idea of having another election. He literally said to Theresa: ‘We’ve only just got here, we’ve only just unpacked the furniture, why are you doing this?’.”

Having served as chairman of the local Conservative Party Association in Wimbledon, it was Philip who was tipped to go into politics. He took a step back when Mrs May, 62, was elected as the MP for Maidenhead in 1997, but has remained committed to the Tory cause.

Hence that rumoured Number 10 intervention last week. By reportedly siding with party chairman Brandon Lewis and Chief Whip Julian Smith in encouraging his wife to reach out to the Brexiteers in her own party – rather than the Opposition – the alleged ruckus serves as a reminder that Philip’s allegiances lie to the party as much as the woman running the country.

As one source put it: “Philip would have been as capable a politician as Theresa. You could swap them out and he’d be just fine. He’s very knowledgeable and committed to the party. He would disappear for a few hours during the election campaign, and when you’d ask him where he’d been he’d say: ‘Just out canvassing’.”

While it has long been said that Theresa May “doesn’t have any friends” inside or outside politics, in fact the couple enjoy what one insider described as a “typically Tory social circle”.

“They will meet other couples for dinner. They are quite close to Simon Dudley, the leader of the council in Windsor and Maidenhead, and his wife. It’s all very old-school, blueblooded Tory. You know, the sort of people who buy £500 of raffle tickets and run supper clubs and enjoy cream teas. For them, the Conservative Party is their life. And they wouldn’t have it any other way. They love going out and meeting people together.”

Theresa also enjoys cooking for her husband – a small semblance of normality in her somewhat surreal world. As one aide revealed: “I remember the PM once delaying an important conference call because she had forgotten to make Philip his lunch. It was really rather touching, seeing how dedicated she is to him, even with everything else on her plate.”

Another insider described how the “homely, cosy” decor at the Mays’ home in Sonning provided an insight into their private suburban world, where they enjoy gardening, watching quiz shows like The Chase and Eggheads and listening to Test Match Special on BBC Radio 4.

Former grammar schoolboy Philip, who was brought up in Liverpool, also enjoys supporting the Reds – leading to another intriguing anecdote about the couple. Recalling a lunch she had arranged with the Prime Minister and her husband, the hostess went to great lengths to ensure Philip was sitting next to a Liverpool fan, revealing: “I told the guests, if you want the PM to enjoy the lunch, keep Philip happy. If Philip’s happy, then the PM’S happy – it really is as simple as that.”

‘If Philip’s happy, then the PM’S happy – it really is as simple as that’

#the mays #daily telegraph #theresa may

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cities · 5 years

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'We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe. By meaningless bulk, vastness without size, power without consequence. The stubborn iteration that is present without being felt. Nothing the spirit can marry. Merely phenomenon and its physics. An endless, endless of going on. No habitat where the brain can recognize itself. No pertinence for the heart. Helpless duplication.’

—Jack Gilbert, from ‘The Manger of Incidentals’

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foxofthedesert · 5 years

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Arrow FF | Dinah x Laurel | A Christmas Miracle

Part 3 – The Dance (Click for AO3 Link)

As Dinah trails Laurel down the familiar amber-lit hallway, she has to remind herself that this is not her first trip to this particular Oak Forest complex. Seeing as Laurel lives smack dab between Felicity and Dinah, the convenience of her apartment made sense to conduct meetings of the anti-Diaz club Felicity formed while Oliver was locked up and which thereafter morphed into what Felicity calls ‘an unconventionally awesome three way Womance.’ Dinah also drops in to check on Laurel after particularly rough days, a gesture that while not received with praise is at least silently appreciated judging by Laurel’s tacit acceptance of her continued unannounced visits. There is a modicum of resentment from Laurel that occasionally boils over due to feeling unfairly criticized or annoyingly henpecked due to the wanton villainy that characterized her recent, although Dinah has learned how to assuage those flare ups with honeyed reassurances that she is only concerned because she cares. Usually that works well enough, and it when it doesn’t they just bicker it out until one of them invariably apologizes. Lastly, during their collaboration on the Ace Chemical case, work twice spilled over into Laurel’s home and saw them laboring into the wee hours of the morning double and triple checking critical details tucked away inside the mountain of associated files.

All of this means that Dinah a stranger to this sharp, stylish corridor, nor is she unfamiliar with the cozy confines of the abode lurking behind the door just ahead. And yet the tingling in her extremities and the butterflies fluttering around in her tummy would suggest otherwise. In the wake of their bonding experience at the shelter, the sensations being produced by Laurel’s proximity and their pending nightcap are not unlike those she experienced the night before her junior prom. Only then her date was a six foot two, one hundred ninety-five pound star athlete with whom she was utterly smitten; whereas now...well, at least the last part is accurate if her slightly humiliating reaction is any reliable barometer.

Get ahold of yourself for God’s sake, she tells herself as they approach Laurel’s front door, which displays a lovely ornamented wreath. You’re not sixteen anymore and this isn’t a date. Then she recalls Laurel’s anxious shifting as the invitation was posed, and how clearly it was meant as much more than a friendly gesture of thanks for her help at the shelter. Or is it? Hmm. Laurel certainly was acting like maybe it is, which is probably why I’m as big a bundle of nerves as she seems to be. Holding her hand when we left the shelter didn’t help matters, either. As Dinah remembers how right it felt when their palms meshed and their fingers wove together, she watches Laurel fumble for the key to her apartment with shaky hands, swear under her breath, then glance back sheepishly before returning to her task. The unmistakable hint of an incredibly fragile hope that flared through Laurel’s green eyes hits Dinah square in the chest. Jesus. Is this really happening?

Dinah gets her answer when Laurel finally slides the correct key home and pushes the door open, then hesitates in the doorway before offering a shy invitation that sounds nothing like the arrogant, flamboyant, dangerous vixen she first encountered on Lian Yu. Unfortunately Laurel recovers her confidence too quickly for Dinah to comment upon that brief display of vulnerability then flicks on the light and enters to reveal a sight no one who knows this Laurel Lance could have ever adequately prepared for.

Inside the apartment is a scene that would not be horribly out of place in one of the Hallmark Christmas movies Dinah enjoys indulging in during the Holidays. Festive trinkets adorn virtually every piece of furniture from little knickknacks like porcelain elves upon the bookshelf to dual poinsettias with ribbons attached to the wrapping on the vase on the entertainment stand next to the door all the way up to an exquisite nativity scene upon the coffee table that appears as old as it is gorgeous. Meanwhile a modest Christmas tree is tucked into the corner of the living room, neatly and conservatively trimmed featuring plain white lights and mostly silver ornamentation.

“I like what you’ve done to the place,” she says as she mimics Laurel in shrugging off her coat then depositing it, as well as her other unnecessary garments, upon the coat rack to the left of the door.

Laurel smiles over her shoulder, an attractive blush coloring her cheeks. “Thanks. I might have gone a bit overboard. This is the first year I’ve decorated since...” she trails off then, brows drawing in, an oppressive sadness dimming the light in her eyes as she is transported somewhere in her mind, to another time and place Dinah is not yet privy to. But as abruptly as the gloom descends, Laurel brushes it away with a shake of her shoulders and reattaches a wry smile to her face. “Well, let’s just say it’s been a long time.”

Wanting to ask about what went through Laurel’s head just a second ago and whether or not it has to do with Quentin, Dinah opts instead for a safer track. Some day she will get Laurel to open up to her about all she’s been hiding for so long under those impressive facades meant to distract from a secret anguish no one else seems interested in. Except for Dinah, that is, and not just due to the cop instincts that make her want to dissect criminals and villains to determine what makes them tick. She wants to know because it has been evident to her since she bothered to look past the jagged sarcasm, edgy goth wardrobe, and penchant for violence, she realized there was something significant there screaming to the heavens to be uncovered. Once she knew what she was looking for, it didn’t take a genius to figure out there is so much hurt being bottled up inside Laurel that needs to be vented if she’s to maintain this positive course correction she’s made. The problem is Laurel’s problematic lack of a support system makes any definitive progress unlikely in the near term. Who in her life would she deem trustworthy enough to permit voyage beyond the as of yet impenetrable facade? The answer is self-evident to Dinah. No one. Or not yet anyway. Dinah is trying her damnedest to be that someone since no one else seems interested.

With every one else important to Laurel life occupied with their own problems, such as Felicity and Oliver with their family and Team Arrow and all the peripheral shit that comes along with being the central figures of a Superhero outfit that spans multiple cities and Earth, or simply unconcerned about her welfare because they can’t let go of the past – ahem Rene and John – the burden of caring about and for Laurel Lance has fallen to Dinah alone. And that’s okay. She’s happy to shoulder it. Dinah has always been a caregiver. It’s one of many factors that drove her to focus her military training into a meaningful civilian service. That and Laurel, at least to her, is worth it. If no one else can see that? Their loss. She’ll take this exceptional, infinitely interesting woman over the banal choices for company daily served up to her on a silver platter.

“What got you in the holiday spirit if you don’t mind me prying?” she asks, following Laurel into the living room where her svelte hostess gestures for her to sit.

“Hold that thought and go ahead and make yourself at home while I go get the snacks,” Laurel says in lieu of answering immediately, then glides off toward the kitchen with her typical grace.

Dinah obeys like a good guest, and to keep from fidgeting occupies her hands by trailing her fingers over the smooth lacquered finish of the figurines composing the nativity scene neatly arranged upon the coffee table. The craftsmanship really is amazing, the precision unlike anything she has come across from her limited exposure to Christmas decorations. As a kid her parents opted to celebrate the holidays in a non-religious manner seeing as both were lapsed in the faith they were born into, her father the son of Southern Baptist preacher and her mother’s family ensconced firmly within Reform Judaism. But she had friends who made big to-dos about Christmas and often visited their houses to get a glimpse into a portion of modern life she was denied. She used to marvel at the ornamentation on display and wish she was brave enough to ask her parents to make some allowances. None of her friends had anything like this, though.

The manger is so intricate that she can feel imperfections in it as if it were real wood, the hay hundreds of individually constructed strings upon which a marvelously detailed baby Jesus lay, with ten tiny olive-tinted fingers clutching at the threadbare shawl wrapped round him. Mary and Joseph are almost as meticulous, in their period clothing with accurate complexions and features, as are the equally diverse wise men and the astonishingly life-like miniature lambs tucked in round the manger.

“My great-great-great-something grandfather made that in the 1850’s, I think,” Laurel says, having snuck back in while Dinah was entranced studying the figurines. A bit startled, she looks up to see Laurel rounding the couch with a tray in hand and tracks her progress as she continues on to deposit the tray carefully upon an unoccupied portion of the coffee table. “It’s also the answer to your earlier question. I mean, volunteering at the shelter this year got me thinking about when I was a kid and my parents would go crazy around Christmas. Nostalgia hit me hard, so I started browsing through some of the boxes of Christmas stuff Quentin never got around to unpacking and found this nativity scene carefully tucked away in bundles of padding. It’s exactly the same as the one my Quentin inherited, one of a handful of items that survived the family move from Germany after the war. Incidentally, apparently family origin is one thing that doesn’t really change between Earths where we have doppelgangers.” She pauses for a breath. “Anyway, I wanted to put it out to remember both Quentins by but it seemed silly to have just that, so I put up a few more. Which turned into a few more. Eventually...I looked around and this had happened. Oopsie.” To prove her point, she gestures around the apartment, its festive décor providing a merry backdrop to what Dinah hopes will be just as merry a night.

“Well, it’s absolutely gorgeous so I don’t blame you one bit for wanting to show it off. Or for going overboard on the rest,” Dinah says, savoring the information she has just gleaned. Not only does she now know that they share in a heritage that traces back to Germany before the Second World War and that family histories remain largely intact between multiple Earths when a person exists in each of them, but the most intriguing tidbit is that Laurel had a happy childhood at one point. So what went so terribly wrong to make her into Black Siren? Curiosity surges through her mind that she quickly tempers with a dose of reality by reminding herself why she’s here. “The whole apartment is really nice. I’m very impressed,” she adds, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. “Now that I know you have a knack for interior decorating, I’ll be blackmailing you into sprucing my place up for Hanukkah next year.”

Just because her late parents chose the path of unbelief does not mean Dinah has. There was a time she abandoned her faith, but since moving to Star City she has slowly been building up to the loosely-observant Reformist she is today. That means among other things that she attends synagogue whenever she can, which isn’t as often as she’d like due to her job, and eats as kosher as convenience and finance will allow. She has never been big on tradition, so she prefers to practice her faith in a casual way that appeals to her modern, practical, and privacy-oriented sensibilities. That said, her belief is as strong as it has ever been, strangely enough thanks to the woman from whom she just washed dishes and mopped floors until her fingers pruned up and her back ached like a bitch. If there was ever a sign from God that love and forgiveness possess a singular power to heal the heart, it has come in the form of her constantly evolving relationship with Laurel.

Ignorant of Dinah’s thoughts, Laurel chuckles at the jest she just made, which causes those amazing dimples of hers to peak out. “Can’t wait to see what material you break out to get me to do your bidding. I’m not easily blackmailed, you know.”

“I know. I happen to like a good challenge, which you most certainly are,” Dinah says with a wink that causes Laurel to blush for what seems like the hundredth time tonight.

“I’ve been called many things, but none with ‘good’ attached as a modifier. Eggnog?” Laurel returns as she gently picks up a mug of eggnog and offers it to Dinah, who accepts it with a grateful smile.

Powerless to resist the creamy goodness cradled in her hands, Dinah takes an experimental sip and cannot stop a moan of pure delight from purring through her chest. “Well, get used to it if this stuff is any indication of your talents.” She then breaks off the arm of one of the gingerbread men, snaps the hand off, then samples the dismembered appendage. Eyes sliding shut in rapture, a similar sound erupts from the depths of her chest. The cookie is more like something out of a professional bakery than an amateur oven. It is soft, perfectly chewy with a cinnamony and gingery flavor that coats her tongue with wonderfulness. “Christ alive, Laurel! This is divine.”

Not half as divine as those noises you just made, Laurel thinks, then chastises herself for what feels like the thousandth time tonight. She has always been hyper-aware of Dinah’s casual sensuality and absurd level of hotness, but lately her inability to curb that awareness has proven quite the irritant.

“Where’d you learn to make this?”

Dinah’s question causes Laurel to reemerge abruptly from the haze induced by that sinful moan. “I found it in my dad’s recipe book,” she answers, hastily to avoid any intensive scrutiny of her embarrassing biological response. “I mean, Quentin’s. Not that my Quentin wasn’t…that he didn’t...err, that he wasn’t...” A soft hand touches her to mercifully prevent any further verbal flailing.

Dinah’s gentle smile eases the mortification, but only just. “It’s okay. I know how much he meant to you. It’s not wrong of you to see him as your dad. He was. If any man ever loved his daughter, that’s the way Quentin loved you.”

Tears prick at Laurel’s eyes unbidden and she clamps down on her lower lip to keep from whimpering like some pathetic little girl. That age old cliché that time heals all wounds is nothing but a bunch of bullshit to Laurel when it’s yet to get any easier for her to hear how deeply this Earth’s Quentin Lance cared for her. The gaping, oozing sore his entirely preventable death left behind is a constant reminder of her unforgivable failures as a daughter upon two worlds. When her mother died in an auto accident and took her Sara to the grave with her, Laurel selfishly and foolishly blamed it all upon her father, who was behind the wheel, even though it was not his fault. A truck driver strung out on amphetamines to stay awake ran a light and plowed right into the passenger’s side. There was nothing anybody could have done, but that didn’t stop Laurel from berating her father at every turn until their relationship was in tatters and he could barely stand to look at her for fear of what she might say. When he was gunned down two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, six months after her Ollie died in the Gambit, she blamed him for that, too. Or at least she did until realization set in that all of the tragedies were ultimately her fault. Her parents had been on their way to pick up her from a silly after school program for advanced readers when that accident occurred, Ollie went on that trip with his dad because she was putting too much pressure on him to move away with her for college, and her father was killed interrupting a robbery while out buying ice cream for her because she emerged from the dreary foxhole of depression to actually interact with him for the first time in weeks.

Guilt over her role in those events ate her alive over the subsequent years. Haunted in nightmares, she was stalked from the shadows of her mind every waking hour of the day until she was reduced to little more than a deviant drug addict living on the streets, willing to do anything for a fix so the voice inside her head that sounded suspiciously like her dad would stop blaming her for their family’s demise. Becoming Black Siren cauterized that wound fairly well up til being Black Siren cost her the exceedingly precious second chance at deserving her father’s unconditional love. That day in the hospital, hearing Sara’s plaintive cries, feeling the blood rushing in her ears, unable to curtail the tears rolling down her face, tore it right back open again, as it has remained ever since. And the only person who has seemed to notice her silent suffering is Dinah Drake.

Miracle of all miracles….

As if sensing Laurel’s internal distress over her terrible comportment and her reticence to continue down this line of discussion, Dinah again proves her aptitude with regard to Laurel’s emotional and mental state. A pat of Laurel’s hand precedes returning her own to her mug, and she then adopts a more neutral posture and tone as she indulges in another healthy sip of the eggnog. After a satisfied little sigh, she asks, “So, what brought you to the shelter?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Laurel says, tone a bit clipped.

One day she will tell Dinah about the months she spent living at place just like the Carmine Kanigher Emergency Shelter. If her wildest dreams come true, she’ll finally be safe enough in a relationship with a woman who can handle the harrowing tale of a broken nineteen year old sexual abuse victim and heroin junkie who escaped her personal hell when S.T.A.R. Labs explosion bathed her battered body in Dark Matter in the midst of an agonized banshee wail. Beaten half to death, face a bloody mess, violated beyond reckoning, angry cigar-shaped burns seared into the small of her back and the back of her neck, in tattered clothes that hadn’t been washed in a month, she stumbled eight blocks in the dead of night until she spotted the little facility tucked in between a decrepit old apartment building and an anachronistic Catholic church that looked more like it belonged in Gotham than Central City.

As she stumbled across the empty intersection, her heart started beating uncontrollably. Two steps out a cold sensation corkscrewed up her spine and she stopped right in the middle of the street, paralyzed. Out of the blue she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head, could smell the stink of vodka on his breath, and feel a grimy hand clamping down on her hips whilst the other snatched great handfuls of her hair with all the tenderness of a rabid grizzly. Panic descended upon her like a runaway train. Unable to think, reduced to pure adrenaline and fear, she used every last ounce of willpower to force her feet to move and raced as fast as her unsteady legs would take her toward sanctuary, heedless of the cars barreling down upon her from both lanes, horns screaming at the crazy unkempt lady on a suicide mission to figure out the chicken’s motives for journeying to the other side of the road. Only instead of a triumphant arrival, her toe got hooked on the sidewalk, causing her to face plant within a stone’s throw from what would soon become her only safe haven in life, fracturing her cheek and reopening the jagged cut on her lip.

Laurel can remember so vividly how she literally crawled those last five yards to the front door on her hands and knees, panting for breath and keening in manic desperation, can remember how her bare knees were shredded on the unforgiving concrete leaving behind erratic streaks of blood that took the staff four hours to scrub out the next day. How she got up the stairs and through the front door is not so clear, but she does recall smelling fresh popcorn the second she staggered inside, a scent to this day she associates with safety. She also remembers being greeted by the unbearably kind face of a woman not much older than she is right now, and how that same woman nursed her through the night so patiently and with such gentle care that she wept in her arms until she passed out.

That is why she was at the shelter tonight. To at long last pay it forward in honor of Emma Morrison and all of the other men and women who filtered through her shattered life during her brief stay at Central Covenant Emergency Shelter. After all they did to piece her back together into some semblance of a human being, a herculean feat Laurel still doesn’t understand how they accomplished, the least she can do is help out around the holidays at a place that is doing the same thing for people just like she used to be. People who have been chewed up and spat out by the world, whose loved ones have left them by choice or via the grave, who have nothing and no one to care for them during the one season per year everyone should have someone. Even a wretch like her.

One day she will tell Dinah all of this, because there hasn’t been any one else in her life since Emma that made her want to talk about her past, to air out her anguish, to vent her immeasurable pain. Dinah makes her want to, though, and not just because Dinah has proven herself trustworthy but because Dinah had the audacity to get to know Laurel for no other reason than for Laurel’s sake. Against all objective logic, Dinah chose Laurel, and continues to over and over again. Nobody else has done that since her Ollie and her Daddy died. So there will come a day she will sit Dinah down and divulge the ugly truth behind her radically abrupt spurt of holiday volunteerism. But not today. Especially not on Christmas. Talking about those dark days would sully something precious that has been building between them tonight. Something Laurel can already feel slipping away from her, which causes her to react with her typical knee-jerk abrasiveness.

Lids narrowing in accusation, she pins Dinah down with a cold stare. “You were the one who followed me there. Worried I was about to dive head first into the evil end of the pool again?” Still on the defensive, she squeezes the mug between her hands more tightly to rein in her flaring temper. She hadn’t meant to jump down Dinah’s throat, it’s just lashing out is her default response to emotional upset. Once she told Felicity empathy was a work in progress – well, it is one of many works in progress in her life, coping mechanisms included.

To her credit, Dinah does not take the bait other than to calmly reply, “Of course not.” A pointed look from Laurel, replete with an arched brow, inspires Dinah to amend herself with a shy shrug and cute shrug of her shoulders. “Okay. Maybe a little. Mostly I was curious. You pawned a very important case off on an A.D.A. at the last minute, so I thought I’d find out why.”

Laurel does not understand the reasoning. At all. “You have history with Martinez. I thought you’d be fine working with him while I took some evenings for myself during the holidays.”

For the first time all night, Dinah becomes visibly upset. Her nostrils flare, the muscles in her arms and shoulders tense, and her eyes narrow sharply. “Well, you figured wrong. We worked that case together for over two months, Laurel. You should have seen it through instead bailing on me!”

Taken aback, Laurel returns her mug to the tray. Of all the things for Dinah to get her panties in a wad about, it’s this? As far as Laurel knows, Dinah and Martinez get along swimmingly. They have worked several cases together since Laurel assumed her doppelganger’s duties as District Attorney and have only returned glowing praises about the other in both verbal and hard copy reports. Hell, they’ve even gone out for casual drinks a time or two and had a swell time, which irritated Laurel more than it should have considering she only recently retrieved her attraction to Dinah from the realm of impossible dreams.

Strangely enough, it was working on this case so closely that made her reconsider whether her assessment of Dinah’s sexuality was as reliable as she initially assumed. Maybe that’s why she’s so perturbed. Maybe she thought the same about me? I mean, I wasn’t exactly waving my bi flag for all to see. What if working this case together has opened her eyes the same way it has mine? What if…

Going any further down that road without context is so dangerous Laurel veers a sharp turn on the nearest on-ramp leading to attaining what she needs with a sudden desperation that is as terrifying as it is exciting.

“Okay...what’s this really about?” she poses, daring Dinah to try and finagle herself out of giving an honest answer.

“I just told you...” Laurel waves off Dinah’s sad attempt at deflection as if batting away a pesky fly. “Yeah, yeah. You told me why you were curious as to my so-called pawning off of the Ace Chemical case. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that you’re truly upset about it. And not for the specified reason. This has nothing to do with your investment in this case. Or mine for that matter.”

“Is that so?”

Dinah’s brows shoot up so sharply it feels as if they’re about to clash with her hairline. How did this conversation turn on her so quickly? She’d meant to get Laurel to confess that she dropped the case because her work at the shelter during the holidays had become too important for her to abandon, that she has finally found a purpose for that heart she’s kept so safely guarded with a charming misanthropy she wields like a sword and shield to repel any who seek entry. Only halfway through the sentence it turned into accusation as the abandonment Dinah felt – and yes, she knows that’s irrational; but Laurel makes her irrational, okay! – superseded that initial noble goal. Deep down, she knows Laurel stepping away from the case only hurt her because it meant they wouldn’t be spending any more late nights in each other’s offices or in Laurel’s apartment working into the wee hours of the morning. There would be no more sipping on coffee and chatting about sports during short breaks, no more furtive glances when they thought the other wasn’t looking, no more of their shoulders and hips brushing together as they huddled over a report they’ve both read a dozen times looking for potential weaknesses or loopholes in the prosecution the defense might exploit, and no more excuses to touch Laurel because she’s right there and available and one hundred percent engaged in their hypnotizing dynamic.

Dinah was aggrieved because she wants more of all that, craves it like a drug, yearns for it like a forlorn lover whose partner has been out of reach for far too long. She is afraid that without a legitimate professional excuse to continue this closeness they’ve developed it will wither on the vine and die before ever bearing fruit. And that hurts her, makes her chest and throat physically constrict and her heart ache painfully to the point she feels tears of sheer despair well up from within her very soul. If she cared to examine that phenomenon with any degree of conviction, she knows she would invariably uncover the root cause to be a four letter word that she simply cannot be the one to say first. There is far too much on the line for that, and not just for her but for Laurel, who has probably been hurt more than Dinah has.

And of course Laurel took the opportunity to, in a matter of heartbeats, dissect Dinah’s outburst and arrive at the same conclusion she has. Sometimes the woman’s perceptiveness is downright infuriating.

“From my point of view it is,” Laurel replies with complete confidence. All of the sudden, those spectacular green eyes lose all hints of vulnerability and instead resemble those of a hawk who has zeroed in on her prey. That prey being Dinah. Which sends a jolt of excitement through Dinah’s veins.

Refusing to back down an inch, Dinah harrumphs. “Well, then, since you’re such an expert in the subject of my motives, why don’t you enlighten me as to what they were?”

Laurel shoots her a warning glance that is not so much threatening as out of concern. Dinah doesn’t quite know what to make of it until Laurel responds, then she understands that the concern is for them both.

“You sure you wanna go down this path? ‘Cause there’s no going back once we do.”

Dinah has never been more sure of anything. Four hours ago she would have taken the out being dangled so tempting in front of her. But four hours ago she hadn’t seen Laurel disarmed of the sword that is her double-edged tongue and disrobed of the impenetrable armor that protects a soft underbelly Dinah would wager has been exposed for none asides from Quentin in a very long time. Four hours ago she hadn’t seen Laurel glowing under the adulation of people who clearly care for her as much as she does them. Four hours ago she hadn’t witnessed Laurel giving heartfelt hugs to homeless folks who weren’t the cleanest or the best smelling and engaging them with a mega-watt dimpled smile that actually reached her eyes as she wished them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and meant every last word. Four hours ago she hadn’t held Laurel’s hand and realized it felt more right in hers than anyone’s ever has – and that includes Vince. Four hours ago she was not ready to trust Laurel with her heart, because believe it or not she is not as strong as everyone makes her out to be.

But that was four hours ago. Now, things are different. Much different. In such an astonishingly brief window of observation she has seen Laurel express attributes she knew were there along just waiting for the right moment to be unfurled and has at the same time been given a glimpse at a potential future that is so beautiful it takes her breath away. All she needs is for Laurel to make the first move. And if that happens, Dinah is ready and willing to meet her halfway.

Until then, however, she has to maintain the pretense of ignorance, and not just for her sake. Like a skittish dog who has been ritually abused only to be rescued by some compassionate soul, Laurel will need to feel like she is in control of the progression of their relationship or she might panic and bolt. Some might see that as an obstacle they could not overcome, but Dinah is not one of those types. Pride within intimacy has never been her problem. Adaptability is her strength. Take charge or be submissive, so long as she is being shown proper love and respect she can cut either direction depending on the mood. With Vince she liked being a little domineering because he could take it. He had this sixth sense for when she wanted to wear the pants and when she needed him to take the reins. It seems that with Laurel, the sixth sense belongs to her. Maybe time will bear out a different result, and if so she is eager to experience the journey, but if not she is just as happy to be for Laurel what Vince was for her. Hell, it might even be the change of pace she didn’t even know she needed.

For now, though, she can just tell that she’s going to have to give a little bit more than she’s used to, bend a little more readily so that this new, fragile, incredibly thrilling development between them doesn’t break right out of the box.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she narrows her eyes dubiously. “Pssh. You act as if your theory is going to blow my damn mind or something.”

“Maybe it is,” Laurel says matter-of-factly, then softens almost imperceptibly. “Maybe it’s already blown mine and I’m just trying to make sure you’re ready for the fallout.”

Internally, Dinah is squealing like a school girl whose crush is just about to make her dreams come true. She has honestly not felt this way in so long she can’t remember the last time. Externally she utilizes her many years of training, both from the military and the police academy, to maintain a neutral expression.

“Don’t go pulling punches on my account. Not now. One of the reasons I like spending time with you is because you give it to me straight. So if you have something to say, say it.”

Laurel nods, then does not hesitate to accommodate Dinah’s command. “Alright. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Here she pauses briefly, inhales deeply, lets it out slowly, then squares her shoulders before launching into her speech. “So...I think that me handing the case off to Martinez means our collaboration ended earlier than scheduled. I think that hurt you, and way more than you could have predicted. I will concede that you might not understand why that is, exactly. Or if you do, you’re too scared to admit it.”

Getting hot. Keep going. Figuring Laurel might need a bit of encouragement to see this through all the way, Dinah decides to inject a bit of a challenge. Laurel always responds well to those…

“I’m not afraid of anything. Especially a loud-mouthed bean pole like you.”

Laurel’s grin tells Dinah her tactic worked like a fucking charm. She gets herself a well-deserved mental pat on the back as Laurel scoots closer rather than reeling away as most would.

“Getting defensive. I hit a nerve, I see. Don’t worry, you didn’t offend me with that cute little barb. In fact, you just proved my point.”

“Which is?” C’mon. You’ve come this far. Just a little further...

“That you like me.”

Score! 1-0 in favor of Drake. I’m liking the direction this is going more and more by the second.

To really sell her being utterly dense of what is going on here and that Laurel is the one in charge, Dinah furrows her brow in confusion. “Come again…?”

A daring hand hovers over Dinah’s arm, then a long finger begins trailing down the underside of her forearm, which is still bared due to her having neglected to roll her sleeves back down. The touch of tapered nail scores a line of fire into her flesh, leaving behind a trail of heat so intense Dinah would not be shocked to discover on the morning that the line has not faded. The thought draws her eyes down to the tattoo of a flock of birds on the outside of Laurel’s right index finger. The sight elicits an electric buzz low in Dinah’s belly.

Unbidden, she imagines lying on her side upon a reclined chair, Laurel sitting next to her and holding her hand as a carefully selected artist etches the finishing touches into a custom design upon the skin high up on her left rib cage – the side closest to her heart - that appears to be a laurel wreath bisected by a knight’s lance. The image does things to Dinah that cannot account for. Never before has she been stricken with the impulse to get such an intimately personal tattoo to join her Marine Corps insignia, as if she subconsciously is already harboring a desire to be branded as Laurel’s woman.

Shit! Dinah shudders as the image dissolves, leaving her excited and frightened and a little turned on all at once. Thankfully, her return to the present is timely, as she glances up just in time to receive Laurel’s languid response.

“You heard me. You like me. And not just because I keep it so real for you.” Lifting her finger from Dinah’s arm, Laurel slides her hand down until her palm slides into place against Dinah’s. Just like at the shelter, their fingers thread together as if designed to be mated. The expression on Laurel’s face then turns decidedly emotional. “You care about me. For me. Not just because I look like someone you used to love or am a useful ally because of my job, my kickass ninja skills, or my meta powers. In spite of all the hurt between us, you see something in me worthwhile.” She ducks her head, looks up at Dinah through her long lashes. “I can tell because it’s the same way that I care for you.”

Dinah exhales sharply as if punched, just without all the consequential pain. This is it. It’s really happening. All of the tension that has built up since their eyes met across the crowded cafeteria at the shelter has come to a percussive crescendo. On Christmas Eve of all days. Is this my present? Is this what I’ve waited all year for? All my fucking life for? And not even known it ‘til now? Hell yes it is! How she knows, she can’t say, nor would she at the risk of killing the magic. Some things are better left assigned to the mysterious and fickle hands of fate. And since said hands seem to be favoring her tonight, Dinah is more than happy to surrender this one without a fight.

“Laurel...are you saying what I think you are?” she asks after tipping up Laurel’s chin.

Knowing instinctively that this is the moment, the one that will define the rest of her life, Laurel braces herself and summons up every last ounce of her courage. For too long she has pined secretly over Dinah, often times secretly even to herself. There was ample reason, to be sure, but all of those seem to have been rendered moot by whatever Christmas magic is operating to give her the one thing she has wanted more than all else since an audacious, slightly self-righteous, lionhearted woman kept her from murdering a federal judge after she bared her heart on behalf of someone she will always love and was cruelly shot down.

That day Dinah saved more than the life of one heartless judge, she saved Laurel’s too. That was the singular event, the axial minute, the pivotal hour that made her believe she could actually make a go of this good guy shit the other Laurel draped around neck like a cloak of calling. Quentin had started her down this path and his death had kept her upon it by a thread most days. But if Dinah hadn’t gone out of her way when she didn’t have to and all but told Laurel she believed it was possible for her to be redeemed, none of this would be possible. Before then, a backslide was inevitable.

And so Laurel mentally buckles up and floors the gas pedal, if for no other reason than she owes Dinah the truth. Come what may.

“If you think I’m saying every time I’m close to you my heart starts racing like it’s going to jump out of my chest, then yes,” she says, investing her heart into her words as possible never before. She squeezes Dinah’s hand a bit harder, willing her to hear and understand that none of what she is hearing is bullshit, that every last syllable is being wrenched from the bottom of what’s left of her heart. “If you think I’m saying I think about you constantly, then yes. If you think I’m saying I’ve never met anyone like you who makes me feel all the crazy, amazing, scary things you make me feel, then yes. If you think I’m saying I daydream about what it would feel like to hold you, kiss you, and wake up with you in my arms, then hell yes to that, too. Truth is, I’ve felt this way for a while now. I think it started that day outside the Courthouse when you stopped me from doing something incredibly stupid. The way you looked at me…I couldn’t remember the last time anybody looked at me that way, and all I knew was I wanted more. These past few months, I’ve done everything I can to insinuate myself into your life because for whatever twisted reason, I’m drawn to you, and I just can’t seem to help myself.”

For an unbearable few seconds, Dinah says nothing, just sits there staring at Laurel while clenching her hand so hard that Laurel starts to lose feeling in her fingers. Dread rears its ugly head shortly thereafter.

Oh, God. Have I blown it? Have I scared her away? Did I read this all wrong? I’m gonna lose her. Fuck! No, no, no...

“Wow. I, uh...wow.”

When Dinah manages that breathless response, it doesn’t inspire much confidence in Laurel that the panic clawing at her chest and clogging her throat are an overreaction. At this point, addled as her brain is, all she can think of is that she needs to backtrack as quickly as possible and salvage their friendship.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”

“No!” Dinah’s interruption is a mini explosion that startles Laurel so badly she jumps. “Just...stop right there. That was a lot to take in at once, but not in a bad way.”

The sensation of relief that washes over Laurel is nothing short of blissful. All of that anxiety might have been for nothing after all. If so, that means Dinah does feel the same as her. And if that is true, it means they might actually make a go of this. There is so much on the line here, so much to lose, that the thought is almost terrifying. Almost. An overpowering urge to kiss those hypnotically plump lips of Dinah’s is overriding all other considerations.

With her heart in her throat all of a sudden, Laurel runs her thumb along the back of Dinah’s hand and is pleased to see Dinah shiver in response. “Really?”

“Really.” Dinah smiles crookedly. “Turns out you’re a pretty smart cookie, Lance. Your theory may be more of a fact. Working with you on this case has been amazing. You’ve been amazing. And I know I shouldn’t, but I want to be close to you, Laurel. Closer, even. So much closer.”

That last bit is hardly more than a whisper, which Laurel hears clearly due to their heady proximity. A frisson of pure joy runs down her body because that is the exact same thing she wants. And not just metaphorically. Right now she wants to be closer physically, too, which has some of her old spunk reappearing.

“How much closer, Dinah?” she asks, eyes hooded, nostrils flaring to indulge in the scent of coconut and jasmine that is uniquely Dinah. She inches forward, drawing their heads and upper torsos ever closer. “‘Cause I’m pretty sure there’s some mistletoe in the vicinity I could scrounge up if I need to. You know, if you need an excuse to ask for a kiss.”

Dinah taps her index finger against her chin a couple times, feigning pretending to weight the need for such measures. “Hmmm.” Then she shakes her head gently as her lips slide into an impish smile. “Nah. Direct is more my style.”

“A woman after my own heart. Which, incidentally, is one of the many reasons I love you.” Laurel gasps aloud the instant that very heavy phrase slides off her tongue. She hadn’t meant to say it. “I...I‘m so sorry. That just slipped out.”

But Dinah does not appear shocked or appalled or angry or anything negative really. Instead, she is still smiling as she leans in, her head tilting a fraction as their noses nearly come into contact. They are so close now Laurel can smell Dinah’s breath, sweet with hints of gingerbread and eggnog, as she speaks. “It’s okay. No need to apologize. I liked it.”

“You did?”

“Mmhmm. Say it again, please.” An emphasis is added when Dinah nuzzles the tips of their noses together.

Laurel has never felt so warm and alive. And there is no way in hell that she would refuse that request, even if she had a gun to her head. She can think no better way to die than professing her love for Dinah Drake.

“Dinah.” She pauses, breathes deep, then opens up her heart and lets all of the repressed affection for this incredible woman spill out in three little enormous words. “I love you.”

Heart in her eyes, Dinah responds with every bit as much emotion. “Laurel. I love you, too.” She then nibbles her lip affectedly, head tilting a bit further. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes, you may. Any time you wish,” Laurel says, her heart thudding in her chest as though it has been replaced by a Pamplona bull.

Dinah does not waste any time. Holding Laurel’s gaze, she leans in until their lips are ever-so-lightly together, lets Laurel adjust and brushes them together from side-to-side until Laurel loses containment upon a high-pitched mewl that tears free from her throat, making her sound like a kitten being teased too long with the milk it so desperately craves. Lips curling into a smile, Dinah stops the teasing at last and seals their lips together. It’s their very first kiss, and it feel is so indescribable, so incredibly wonderful that Laurel’s brain short circuits. In that moment, she is reduced to pure sensation, from the tingling of her lips as Dinah gently sucks upon them to the fire coursing through her veins, burning away every last vestige of doubt, fear, and anxiety over whether or not they might be ruining something irreplaceably precious and over whether or not she will ever deserve however much love Dinah is willing to expend upon her. None of that matters when with one kiss

When Dinah pulls away a few seconds later, she hums in appreciation of what has just happened. And then her eyes begin dancing merrily. “Just for future reference, was that little Wesleyan promise you made my Christmas present? Infinite kisses?”

Laurel chuckles at the reference she actually understands. They don’t have The Princess Bride on Earth-2, which is a crime in and of itself, but thankfully Dinah was kind enough to introduce her to one of this world’s classic romantic comedies. Which was the reason she used that phrase. How Wesley felt about Buttercup is pretty much exactly how she feels about Dinah. Hopelessly devoted. Willing to do anything and everything for her. Willing to kill for her, and if she must, die for her. That said, now is not the time for such declarations.

“I actually was going to give you a Colt CQBP,” she says, smirking because she knows how much of a gun nut Dinah is. “But now I’m thinking I like your idea better.”

“Ooo! How did you know I wanted one of those? God, that’s so tempting. I think I agree with you, though. The kisses sound like a much better deal.”

Laurel reacts accordingly, hands going to her chest as if flattered. Because she is. Dinah turning down a gun for her kisses is a pretty big statement. Almost as big as Ollie rejecting a new, spiffier bow in favor of his wife’s smooches.

“Oh, my. I’ve got a sweet talker on my hands. Are you gonna make me regret...”

With a growl, Dinah interrupts the spiel Laurel was about to launch into about giving Dinah a brand new avenue of attack with which to get her way.

“Shut up, woman, and give me more of what I really want.”

“My God, you are so demanding.” Laurel caps off the comment with dimpled grin.

“And you wouldn’t have me any other way,” says Dinah, who then without warning surges forward to claim Laurel’s lips in a searing kiss with none of the tentative nature of the first.

After some indeterminate amount of time exploring one another on the couch with eager lips and combative tongues and adventurous hands, they draw apart reluctantly, their lips breaking contact with a satisfying smack. As she leans away from the sole source of her current inundation with unadulterated bliss, Laurel inadvertently glances up at the clock only to note that it is, in fact, five minutes past twelve. Christmas Eve is officially over, which can only mean one thing.

Reaching out with her left hand, she tenderly cups Dinah’s cheek. “Merry Christmas, Dinah.”

Burrowing into the embrace, Dinah’s answering smile is one for the ages. “Merry Christmas, Laurel.”

Which it most certainly is. In fact, it will turn out to be the most Merry Christmas Laurel has ever had. Until next year, that is, when she wakes up with a gloriously naked and happily sated Dinah sleeping soundly sprawled atop her. Or the next year, where she awakens to a very frisky Dinah kissing and licking up the length of her inner thigh and doesn’t stop until arrival at the Promised Land. Or the year after that when they are engaged and spend an unbelievably awesome Christmas with Sara and Ava back in 18th century at the winter home of the legendary Carolus Rex of Sweden. Or the year after that, the best yet, when her present is little stick with two pink lines.

Some might say Merry Christmas as a perfunctory salutation to friends and family, but not Laurel. She means it every time she says it. And how can she not? Dinah makes every Christmas a merry one for her.

#dctv #arrow #arrow fanfic #fanfic #dinah drake #laurel lance #dinah x laurel #laurel x dinah #aka Dinahmite!#or:#dinahsiren #christmas

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